


Just You

by jmandrake



Category: Phineas and Ferb
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Panic Attacks, Sleepovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-08
Updated: 2014-04-08
Packaged: 2018-01-18 14:28:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1431880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jmandrake/pseuds/jmandrake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The late-night phone call doesn't bother Perry. Heinz thinking Perry won't be there for him ... that hurts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just You

2 AM, and Perry’s watch began to buzz against his cheek. He yawned, jaw popping, and fumbled with his communicator until he’d flipped it into SILENT mode. He sat up, sliding out of the covers near the foot of Ferb’s bed, and shuffled out of the room, closing the door softly behind him.

It had been a while since he’d been called in at night. He  _thought_  the agency had come to an agreement with Dr. Doofenshmirtz about that, but maybe not. He hadn’t exactly been paying rapt attention during the last OWCA meeting, but he had assumed that was the gist of it—that his request to have nights off had been filed and approved and that all parties involved would refrain from any activities that warranted thwarting after the sun went down. Perry grimaced and swiped his bill with the back of his hand. He trudged downstairs, pausing to take a long, cold drink from his bowl, before wearily flipping on the communicator. Monogram answered, looking just as exhausted.

“Don’t even bother coming to the lair, Agent P,” Monogram grumbled from the monitor. “This is a Code 11. We … don’t actually know what Doof’s up to—he put out the alert himself. Just get over there.” Monogram adjusted the camera, revealing the collar of his pajamas. “You can report back in the morning.”

Perry flipped off his watch and pushed aside the sliding glass door into the backyard. He stomped around the grass for a while until he finally found the hidden trigger that lifted his jetpack up from an underground platform. He gnawed the inside of his cheek as he shouldered the jetpack. Doofenshmirtz had personally alerted the agency about his activities before, usually when he had a particularly elaborate trap lined up. But a Code 11? OWCA reserved that kind of alert for only the most serious threats.

Perry activated the jetpack and flew out across town, letting his eyes adjust to the dark skyline. It only took a few minutes to reach the balcony of Doofenshmirtz’s building. He scanned the scene quickly, but nothing looked too out of the ordinary, gargoyles withstanding. He left the jetpack on the ground and hurried to knock loudly on the door. When Heinz didn’t answer immediately, Perry kicked out the glass and promised to leave some money to pay for the damage later.

The main laboratory was dark and empty. Perry waited a moment to see if the cold machines would shake to life, stirring up traps and inators. Nothing. He was sure Doofenshmirtz would never be patient enough to wait longer than ten seconds to spring his trap. Not here, then.

The rest of the apartment seemed just as quiet. Perry wished, not for the first time, that he could actually reach the light switches. He hated fumbling around in the dark, and there was something profoundly unsettling about seeing Doofenshmirtz’s lair this still.

He was sure he’d checked all the rooms Doofenshmirtz usually used for their confrontations, which just left the bedroom. Sure he’d cornered his nemesis, he marched over to the door, hopping up on the wall so he could wrap his hands around the knob. He twisted it, felt it give, and dropped to the floor. The door swung open.

Perry’s gut clenched.

Heinz sat up in bed, his head clutched in his hands. His whole body shook, and his arms were covered in a sheen of sweat. Perry could  _smell_  it, that high, thin charge in the air that reeked of nausea and fear.

A chill rolled down Perry’s spine when he recognized it.  _Panic attack._

He froze, and for a brief moment, he just stood there, listening to the scientist’s muffled whines, which were broken only by sharper, shuddering gasps. Perry racked his brain for some kind of protocol, but he could barely remember any of the human first-aid training he’d had so long ago. No, there was something. He took a moment to let the thought crystallize.  _Don’t touch him. Help him breathe._

Perry skittered over to the bed, pulling at the covers to climb up. When Heinz saw him, his chest hitched into a sob.

“P-Per…” He couldn’t get out the rest. His pupils were blown wide, and he sucked in air around the words, each breath scraping down his throat. Perry had never seen him look so terrified.

Perry chattered to get his attention and mimed deep, even breaths. Heinz nodded, his eyes focusing slightly, and tried to breathe along with Perry. For a while, it didn’t seem to work, and Perry watched helplessly as Heinz fell into another spiral of jagged gulps, his body trembling so hard that Perry felt his own knees shake. He kept breathing, keeping eye contact as best he could.

Perry wasn’t sure how much time passed before Heinz seemed like himself, his chest rising and falling in rhythm, the terror almost visibly sliding away. Perry waited until he’d counted a full minute of Heinz’s slow, steady breaths, and when he was sure the worst was over, he rushed forward and clambered up Heinz’s sloped spine to wrap his arms and legs around his nemesis’s thin, shaking shoulders. He held on as tight as he could, working his bill against Heinz’s neck. They sat in silence like that for several minutes, and Perry listened to the man’s steadying pulse, weak with relief.

At last, Heinz reached up to squeeze Perry’s hand. Perry loosened his hold and slipped back down to the bed, giving Heinz a quick smile. Heinz held his forehead against his knee for a moment before he said anything.

“Nightmare.” Heinz swallowed. He pushed a hand under the strands of hair still plastered to his forehead. “Gimmelshtump.”

Perry nodded, giving Heinz’s arm a tight squeeze. He’d only seen glimpses of Heinz’s childhood, filtered through monitors hooked to the man’s memories, and even he sometimes had trouble sleeping because of them. A cold coil of fear twisted his stomach if he let himself think about that child left alone in the dark, or if he imagined his boys going through the same thing. Maybe during a typical monologue, Heinz could dissociate himself from the immediacy of the pain, but that trauma ran deeper than even Perry knew.

Heinz had gone silent again, and Perry chattered, afraid that his thoughts were shooting in the same direction Perry’s had. It scared him, too, to find a silence that needed filling around Heinz Doofenshmirtz. He nudged Heinz with one hand and tapped his watch.

Heinz looked at him with a weary, apologetic smile. “I’m sorry I called so late…”

Perry shook his head and traced a finger around the rim of the watch.

Heinz squinted in confusion. “Um? What time…? Oh, how  _long_?” Perry nodded. “Oh. Well. I guess for, like … fifteen minutes before you got here.”

Perry winced. He might have even missed the worst of it.

“Sorry for putting out an alert like that.” Heinz smiled thinly. “I… didn’t know if you’d come otherwise.”

Perry frowned and shook his head, chattering angrily. Of  _course_  he would have. He would have come _quicker_ , if he had only known—

Heinz’s smile widened a tiny bit. “I should have figured.” His voice sounded even more hoarse than usual, and it barely rose above a whisper. “You just wanna  _save_  everybody, don’t you?”

Perry frowned and pushed on Heinz’s leg, offended.  _…Just you_.

Heinz lifted his hand for a moment, then let it fall back to his side. He cleared his throat. “Anyway. I didn’t know who else I could call. Vanessa isn’t here and I can’t even wake up Norm. He’s plugged up for his monthly recharge.” He made a noise that sounded like a laugh. “I have to reboot him occasionally. He gets … buggy, otherwise. Thinks I’m his father.”

Perry chattered back, eager to keep Heinz talking. He was sounding better.

“Pile of junk would have just made it worse,” Heinz muttered darkly. He stood up stiffly, wobbling on uneasy ankles. He began stumbling toward the bathroom, groping in the dark. Perry followed close behind, occasionally leaning his body hard against Heinz’s legs when it seemed he might fall.

“Thank you, Perry the Platypus,” Heinz said tiredly, once he’d turned on the bathroom light. He leaned against the sink and poured a glass of water, downing it in a few quick gulps. He sighed.

“I used to get these all the time,” Heinz said, gesturing toward his sweat-soaked reflection. “Before I went evil. Monologuing is actually a  _really_  good… what’s the word?…  _outlet_ , I think. You can turn it all into a story, you know? You can do something about it. But before, I just never talked about it.”   
  
“Charlene…” Heinz pulled short around her name, and a long moment passed before he spoke again. “…used to help. She’d know when it was about to happen and she’d hold me … hold it in.” Heinz wiped his sleeve across his eyes. “I just kept thinking about her not being here. That just made it worse, I think.”

Perry chattered quietly. Heinz  _never_  talked about his marriage, only complained about the timeliness of his alimony checks or the difficulty of coordinating rides for Vanessa between the two of them. This was the first detail he’d ever let slip about his life with Charlene, and that fact alone made the moment seem half-sacred.

“She’d ask me if I wanted to talk about it, and I … couldn’t.  _I_  couldn’t, Perry the Platypus, can you imagine?” Heinz coughed out a laugh. “You’ve heard about it for  _days_. But that’s your job. It was different with her. I didn’t know … didn’t know how she’d take it, I guess. Even the stories she did hear… she always thought they were funny. Quaint. I was so scared—if I told her about more of it—she would laugh. That I’d hate her for laughing.”

Heinz twisted the faucet open a little and just let the water drip. The silence stretched on, and when Heinz spoke again, his voice held the strained tone of a frightened child.

“That’s when I still thought … if I just didn’t do anything  _wrong_ —” He started to shiver again, and Perry just wrapped his arms around his left leg, trying to still the tremors. Heinz took a deep breath and relaxed slightly, bending down so he could pat the top of Perry’s head.

“Don’t worry too much, Perry the Platypus. I do feel better. I mean, I’ve—I’ve gone through this before. I’ll be all right now. Just shaky.”

Perry looked up at him, hoping to see something in Heinz’s expression that was reassuring. But he just looked tired, emptied of all his usual energy.

“Oh. You think you could  _not_  tell Francis? I just don’t know if…”

Perry gave him a quick thumb’s up. He didn’t know  _what_  he was going to tell Monogram yet, but it wouldn’t be this. Heinz grinned.

“Good. Good.  _Oy._  That’s… that’s about enough for today.” He flicked off the bathroom light and shuffled back toward the bed. Perry trotted after him. Unsure of what to do, he hopped up on the bed and started fluffing pillows and pulling at the covers. Surely there was something else he could do… make some soup, maybe? Perry didn’t know if he had the faintest idea how to use the stove, but surely Heinz kept some soup cans around… the microwave would be fine. He paced along the bed, smoothing the blankets under his feet. What else? He frowned, thinking, until he realized Heinz hadn’t moved.

“Um, Perry the Platypus?” In the weak light, Heinz looked small and unmade; whatever stitching usually held him together had been yanked out, but his voice seemed stronger than it had been all night. “Could you stay? Please?” For once, he didn’t apologize—no  _sorry to be a bother_ , no  _I hate to ask…_  Perry didn’t hesitate. His family wouldn’t miss him until late in the morning, and for right now, Heinz needed him more. He smiled, nodded, and patted the spot on the bed next to him.

Heinz let out a held breath and launched himself toward Perry with a bright grin, something of his old self returning. He thanked Perry profusely for trying to make the bed (“I mean, you _tried_ , Perry the Platypus, but you’re too tiny to catch all the wrinkles… but that was nice!”), and he picked Perry up so he could dump him on one of the larger pillows. Perry adjusted himself, snuggling into its folds, as Heinz lay down next to him, still babbling about how nice it would be to have some company and how he remembered reading bedtime stories to Vanessa but didn’t think Perry would really need anything like that, it was just that he sometimes thought of Perry as a much younger platypus, but actually he wasn’t sure exactly _how_  old Perry was, not that he  _looked_  it, but—

Perry let him talk, his heart lifting as Heinz forgot himself, forgot his past, forgot whatever unnamable terror gripped him when he was alone. He’d be … okay, probably. As okay as could be.

Heinz talked until his words started to sound slow and sleepy. He smiled at Perry and curled a hand around Perry’s shoulder. “Thank you,” he whispered, glancing sheepishly at Perry before pulling the platypus closer to him. Perry tensed for only a moment, but it felt nice—Perry’s face wedged against his side, Heinz’s arms tight around Perry’s small body. The beat of his nemesis’s heart sounded loud in Perry’s ears, and it wasn’t long before both of them had drifted off to sleep.


End file.
